M.M.A!! My New Thang!

I have started a new sport in the last few months that I am really excited to be sinking my teeth into. Mixed Martial Arts.

Over the year’s I have done the odd bit of martial arts or boxing here and there and have always enjoyed it but never really stayed still long enough to really get into it. Now that I am staying here for a while and have a job that allows me the time to commit a lot of hours to the things I enjoy doing I have really been getting into it, even accepting a fight in the upcoming ‘Bali Brawl’ on June the 25th. Unfortunately a stupid surfing accident looks to have forced me to pull out of the fight which is very disappointing given the amount of work I have put into it over the last month but that’s life and I know there will be more. I’m hungry to fight!!!

This could all become irrelevant as I’m not sure if I will get to fight him anymore but my first fight was supposed to be against a Mr K. He is from San Diego and he’s 6 ft 6, so quite tall but he only weighs the same as I do at about 91 kgs so he’s not big. I have only seen one of his previous fights and I’m not even sure how many others he has had but he lost it quite easily. His strengths are (and particularly against me) his ground game. He is very long and has a background in Brazilian Jiu Jitzu (BJJ), which in short (like the shortest way possible) is the art of wrestling yourself into a position where you can submit an opponent. Submitting an opponent in mixed martial arts is quite common and its where someone gets you in a bad head lock, arm lock, knee lock, foot lock, anything really where they can put a lot of pressure on a part of your body where it hurts so bad that you tap out.

So that’s his strength.
His weakness, and particularly against me is he has no stand up game (I have an incredible muay thai coach and we are pretty confident my stand up is far superior to his). Which is basically to say he is a wrestler and he can’t fight. He has never done any boxing or kickboxing or anything, his footwork is bad and he is really slow.

So with all that in mind I have been training for about 5 hours a day in two parts. My stand up stuff is far from perfect and can never stop getting better so obviously will always work on that, but the most intense stuff I have been learning as much as possible is to defend being taken down so that I can keep the fight on my feet as long as possible and also how to defend myself on the ground once we are down there. I will get taken down, probably a few times, there’s no doubt about it so you need to prepare for the worst. So in training it’s been a lot of groundwork, submission defence and what they call ‘ground and pound’ which is wrestling into a position where you can strike your opponent from the ground. BJJ is very technical and takes quite a bit of thought so if you can keep moving and strike whenever you get the chance it helps a lot to hold them off for as long as possible.

So having said all that we were very happy with our opponent for our first fight and im very disappointed to not be fighting him any more, especially as I genuinely do not like the guy and I think he is a dickhead!!! I would have loved to get in there and smash him.